‘The mountain, forest and streams are our gods’

The Adivasis of the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha won a victory in 2013 against mining, but the threats to their ancestral land remain. Rajkishor Sunani, poet-activist, sang about this at the recent Niyamgiri festival

“From my childhood, I have been a rebel. I protest against injustice,” says Rajkishor Sunani, a Dalit poet,
singer and activist from Karlagaon village, around 110 kilometres from the Vedanta alumina refinery
in Kalahandi district. “I joined the movement [against bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hills] in 2002-03. I wrote songs to make people aware, and I travelled
from village to village to spread the message of the movement,” he says.

“At that time, my wife Leelabati and I lived in the
villages here and sang songs,” Rajkishor recalls. People would invite the couple into their homes and give
them food and shelter. The Sunanis, modest cultivators in their
own village, had no source of income at that time and survived on the
generosity of Adivasis. “My wife and I also went to jail in 2004 for protesting against Vedanta. I was detained for
three months and Leelabati for a month. Even today, the nexus
between the government and [mining] companies continues to suppress people’s
movements,” he says.

The
Niyamgiri hills, which spread across Kalahandi and Rayagada districts in
southwestern Odisha, are home to the Dongria Kondh (or Jharnia Kondh, as many
of them call themselves), a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), estimated
to number only 8,000; other related Adivasi groups live in around 100 villages
in the region.

For long, the Dongria tribes have opposed a project by the government-owned Odisha
Mining Corporation and Sterlite Industries (now Vedanta), a British multinational. The project proposed to mine their sacred hills for bauxite (used for making aluminium) for Vedanta’s refinery in the state's Lanjigarh tehsil.

In 2013, the Adivasis unanimously rejected the mining of their land through a Supreme-Court
mandated referendum conducted in 12 villages around Niyamgiri. Among others, the movement was
led by the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, a collective of Adivasis, and many
activists like Rajkishor.

The Odisha government
has since tried (so far without success) to overturn the referendum, and the refinery continues to operate
with bauxite from other sources. The threats to the ancestral land of the Adivasis
remain on the horizon.

PHOTO •
Purusottam Thakur

Poet-singer-activist Rajkishor Sunani at the Niyamgiri festival in February 2018

'The world’s environment is being conserved to some degree only by such movements. Otherwise, everything would have been destroyed', Sunani says, as he plays the dhap and sings about the beauty of the hills

I met Rajkishor this year at the
annual post-harvest festival in the Niyamgiri plateau, near Anlabhata village. He had trekked across six kilometres of hilly terrain to get here. The festival is held from February 23 to 25 every year, and is dedicated to Niyam Raja (roughly, the King or Giver of Law). In the evening of the second day and on the morning of the final day, when
activists spoke about their experiences of people’s movements, Rajkishor sang.
When he started singing, more people gathered around.

He sings passionately, plays instruments like the dhap(a frame drum), and draws large crowds. Apart from the
people’s movement in Niyamgiri, he has written songs for other struggles too, including
that in the Gandhamardhan
hills of Bargarh district, against
bauxite mining by the Bharat Aluminium Company (BALCO).

Now 55, Rajkishor has
been a singer-activist for over two decades. He is also a member
of the Samajwadi Jan Parishad (a political party founded by socialist leader Kishen Pattnaik), which has supported people’s movements in Niyamgiri and other villages of Odisha.

I ask him: what do you feel about the struggles you’ve
been a part of? “The world’s environment is being conserved to some degree only by such movements,” he says. “Otherwise, everything would have been destroyed.” And to make sure it isn’t,
he beats his dhap
and sings of the beauty of the hills. Watch him singing in the video featured here (the lyrics are below the video image):

Watch video: Sunani's 'Song for Niyamgiri'

Song for Niyamgiri

We will never leave the mountain, stream, forest and our homeWe will not give up the struggle, even if we have to sacrifice our livesDear friends, we will not leave the struggle

The mountain, forest, and streams are our godsThe land is full of flowers and fruits that are like Kuber [the Hindu god of wealth]Dear friends, the mountain, forest, land and streams are our godsThe land, water, air, sky and fire are the devata [god]

The land provides us with greenery, trees, fruits and roots The sky provides the air, and gives the water of the streamThe water flows like mother’s milk

Dear friends, we drink the milk of the motherland You can stay alive after leaving your gods,But we cannot live after leaving our god

Whether or not it is true, we don’t knowHow can you stay alive by giving up nature?

Oh dear! This science is the truthDear friends! Please accept the truthAnd discard untruths!The mountain, land, forest and streams are our main deities

Our land is full of forest, fruits, roots and animals We are neither Hindu nor Muslim nor ChristiansWe are the tribes and worshipers of natureDear friends, we are equal, man and womanDear friends, we enjoy freedom here

Dear friends, the government and the corporates suppress us They’re together with each otherDear friends, the mountain, land, forest and streams are our godsWe will save the forest, land, water, animals and people

If the environment is destroyed, all of us will be deadWe, the farmers, labourers and daily-wage workers, all will be unitedWe will drive away those who loot us, only then we can survive…

Dear friends, the mountain, land, forest and streams are our godsHey government! We will not be afraid of your lathis, bullets and jailWe will sacrifice for our motherland and not give up the struggle!Wake up all the tribes and workersIf we are attacked, we, the children of the soil, will not remain silentOur struggle will continue…

Dear friends! We wish to remain in peace – and be free!Dear friends, we are fighting for our rights!Dear friends, let the corporate government get out!Dear friends, the mountain, land, forest and streams are our gods...